HAVE A BALL!
BATTER UP
The Jets are finished, and the Mets and Yankees don’t start spring training for another 2½ weeks. What’s a New York sports fan to do (if you can’t score Knicks tix)? Head to the Brooklyn Historical Society (128 Pierrepont St., Brooklyn Heights; brooklynhistory.org) for the ongoing exhibit “Home Base: Memories of the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field.” Filled with photos, oral histories, Ebbets Field seats, baseball cards, uniforms and more, it was curated by Brooklyn high school students born long after the team left for Los Angeles after the 1957 season.
“All I knew about the Brooklyn Dodgers was that Jackie Robinson played for them,” says Nowshad Hussain, a Brooklyn Tech senior. A Yankees fan who lives in Queens, Hussain says he would’ve worn a white B on his cap, had he been alive in 1955 when Brooklyn beat the Bronx Bombers to win their only World Series. “I would have been a Brooklyn Dodgers fan after seeing how the community pulled together.”
— Brian Niemietz

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EAT IT!
CHILI, NOT COLD
Fireplaces are overrated. Warm up with the kind of heat that gives back at the first NY ChiliFest Sunday, where more than a dozen restaurants will compete with their tastiest bowls of chili while raising money for nonprofit Food Systems NYC. (Contest is held at the Chelsea Market from 4 to 8 p.m.)
“It’s the middle of winter; everyone loves chili,” says restaurant Mile End’s Noah Bernamoff, whose bowl will feature his infamous smoked Canadian pastrami. “The fun isn’t just spooning 2-ounce-size portions into little cups; it’s going around trying everyone else’s,” he jokes. In fact, Bernamoff is most excited to sample a spoonful from “sleeper” spots such as Txikito “who’ll likely use spices no one’s heard of from the jungles of Nicaragua.”
Chili-only tickets are $35 at the door and $10 more for beer. Go to chilifest2011.com for details.
— Sara Lieberman

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DON'T MISS!
WHAT’S UP DOC?
Long before “The Tonight Show” Leno/Conan hoopla, trumpeter Doc Severinsen was the show’s musical director for Johnny Carson. After Carson retired in 1992, Severinsen took his music on the road and even tried retiring, himself, a few years ago — to Mexico. But dinner at a local Italian joint there changed that, when friends insisted he go to hear the band there. “These guys started to play, and I said, ‘Whoa, these guys aren’t just good, these are world-class players.’” The result: Severinsen, 83, joined them, creating the San Miguel 5. Tonight at 8, the quintet plays Carnegie Hall (Seventh Avenue at 57th Street; carnegiehall.org) with the New York Pops in a program called “El Ritmo de la Vida” (The Rhythm of Life).
“The cornerstone of what we do is Latin music,” Severinsen says, with French Gypsy jazz, Spanish Gypsy, Argentine tango and movie tunes in the mix. When Severinsen came to New York around 1950, he says, “some of the very first work I got was in Latin bands” — including with Tito Puente.
As for NBC’s handling of “The Tonight Show,” Severinsen calls it “very distasteful.” He adds, “Letterman was Johnny’s favorite, and I think he’s done an excellent job.”
— Billy Heller

Tony Scodwell

SEE THIS!
GO WEST
Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy (right) are at their funniest in “Way Out West” (1937), a spoof of B-movie Westerns unreeling tomorrow and Sunday at 12:30 p.m. at the Museum of the Moving Image. Priceless moments include the boys’ soft-shoe routine in front of a saloon and their duet of “The Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.” The setting is the town of Brushwood Gulch, to which L&H are sent to deliver a gold-mine deed to the daughter of a deceased prospector. But the saloonkeeper (frequent foil James Finlayson) has other ideas. 35th Avenue and 36th Street, Astoria, Queens; movingimage.us.
— V.A. Musetto

AQUARIUS COLLECTION

TRY THIS!
SCENE STEALER
Grab some popcorn and a microphone — this isn’t your average movie night. Tomorrow (at 10:15 p.m.), gather your friends and bring your favorite DVD to 92nd Street Y Tribeca for its first ever Movieoke. Pick a five-minute scene, and it will “unreel” silently with subtitles so you can act it out. You probably won’t score an Oscar nod, but you can show off your acting chops with a little help from the professionals.
Host Noah Tarnow, of local live trivia show The Big Quiz Thing, says, “When you come up to do your scene, I’ll throw some movie trivia at you for prizes.” (He’s picked a favorite scene from “Kill Bill” to perform.) “The great thing about movieoke,” he says, “is, just like karaoke, you get to be the star!”
92YTriBeCa, 200 Hudson St.; 212-601-1000; $10.
— Calla Salinger